We must have a National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Strategy

No one is advocating to keep Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in unsafe situations. On this we are all in agreement. We share responsibilities to ensure the right of every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child to be safe and thrive in family, community and culture. Their safety is paramount, our children must be kept safe. However, if a child is removed to ensure their safety, they must have the most appropriate placement with processes, supports and accountabilities in place to ensure their safety while enabling cultural continuity and connection to kin.

It is simplistic, divisive and destructive to link culture with abuse. Any accusation that culture is being used as an excuse to harm children is false. Any suggestion that a child’s safety would be willingly compromised for the sake of culture is misguided, hurtful and untrue. Most of our children are living in safe environments with their parents, with strong connections to their culture, because culture and child safety are not mutually exclusive.

The issues are complex, and the outcomes are tragic. There are currently ten Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander children in the out-of-home care system for every-one non-Indigenous child and the numbers are projected to treble by 2035 if no effective action is taken. Family Matters is calling for a new approach, one that is robust, transparent and accountable. The current system does not work and in fact exacerbates the existing disadvantages and trauma experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and communities. Closing the Gap must aim to eliminate the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care by 2040.

To achieve this while keeping children safe will require a dramatic restructure to the investments in early years education and care and early identification, support and intervention services for families. Currently less than $1 in every $5 of child protection funding is spent on support services for children and their families. There must be a national recognition of the need for investment in strengthening families prior to the emergence of protective issues. We must work to ensure that the drivers of child protection intervention are addressed, rather than continuing with a poorly designed and resourced system that reacts when it’s too late, after families have already reached breaking point and children have been harmed. If we continue to tear families apart without addressing issues including poverty, disadvantage and trauma that underlie neglect and abuse, then the next generation will be removed in even greater numbers.

We reject the simplistic and uninformed cries to remove children at risk and permanently adopt them to non-Indigenous families, as this ignores the complexity and severity of the underlying causes that have brought us to this point.

This new approach requires not only adequate resourcing but also the transition of power to communities and the Aboriginal community-controlled organisations that service and support them. The process must be led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We understand the situation in a way that no one else can; the complex issues, our cultures and our social structures. We have the highest stakes in this matter – the safety and wellbeing of our own children and the effect that their removal has on our families and communities.

Family Matters notes and supports the Labor commitment to holding a major summit on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children within its first 100 days of government, which will involve all those working in frontline services to protect Australia’s children. This must be underpinned by an investment in a National Aboriginal Children’s Strategy that includes child protection in the Close the Gap priorities. It must be overseen by a National Aboriginal Children’s Commissioner supported by jurisdiction-based commissioners that are independent and well-resourced.